FROM THE PRINTED PAGES

OF HOMETOWN, FREEMAN’S

Bill Waller, who is still active in the Cooperstown Winter Carnival – this year, he devised the clues for AllOTSEGO.com’s $500 Medallion Hunt – shows off memorabilia on the site of the early celebrations – atop frozen Otsego Lake. (Ian Austin/AllOTSEGO.com)

Editor’s Note: This feature story first appeared in the AllOTSEGO.life section of Hometown Oneonta and The Freeman’s Journal published last Thursday and Friday. This year’s 52nd annual carnival ends this evening.

By LIBBY CUDMORE • For AllOTSEGO.life

Cars race on Otsego Lake during an early Winter Carnival.

COOPERSTOWN – If you looked out and saw cars out on Otsego Lake today, you would probably call a tow truck.

But in 1974, when Bill Waller was Cooperstown Winter Carnival chairman, it was all part of the fun.

“We had all sorts of events on the lake – Just as long as the ice was 18-inches thick,” he said.

Back then, chief among the favorite activities was the annual gymkhana, where cars would race through cones across Otsego Lake’s ice.

“When we came up for the first Winter Carnival in 1969, I saw all these cars out on the ice,” said Waller. “I took my car out, but I had the wrong tires on, so I didn’t do very well.

Editorial for December 28, 2018

Stacie Haynes
Latest ‘Citizen’ To Win
Everyone’s Appreciation

In early 2015, when the credentials of Hometown Oneonta/The Freeman’s Journal “20 Under 40” honorees were published in this newspaper, Stacie Haynes – one of the 20 – called to say how impressed she was by everyone’s accomplishments.
“I’m not worthy,” she said.

It was explained to her that an independent panel of community leaders from Oneonta and Cooperstown had convened, reviewed nominations from the public, and chosen the 20 as among the most promising young people in Otsego County.
The newspaper’s editors hadn’t made the selection and, under the guidelines, had no standing to add or remove anyone.
This year, though, Stacie Haynes, now executive director of the Susquehanna SPCA, more than proved the “20 Under 40” judges’ confidence.